Blogging in a nutshell

It's quite interesting to stumble upon your friend's blog. Considering that I'm an international student, I don't have many long term friends, it's hard for me to have a glimpse of their personal thoughts on life (if you consider Singaporeans truly capable of thinking wider than an academic syllabus or about capitalism with the thought that their thinking is independent of outside influence, although I am heavily racist here). It certainly is not a topic of discussion during a meal (despite my famous conversation starter "how's life?", which holds more meaning that my intention) nor a topic that someone can easily evaluate with a conversation requiring you to be on your feet. Additionally for many Singaporeans, it tends to get people down and depressed, thinking that their life is set out for them, weighed down by heavy expectations (part of the reason why I don't pry into typical boring Singaporean life), so looking through their blog gives me a little bit more insight about how deeply the individual can contemplate. Looking at Singaporean blogs... not very much, although I'm not one to judge.

What I can judge is how long someone has been blogging for. It's easy to tell an experienced blogger relative to a newbie. An experienced blogger is able to submit their thoughts easily and cohesively, which is harder to do for a newbie blogger (although I do find my thoughts often jumbled up. The number of times which I have written "but I digress" within my blog posts are astounding) and in so harder in every day life. Many non-bloggers find it hard to talk about themselves, or present ideas. In hindsight I have learned a lot from my blogging experience and it took me quite a while to realise this. 

Much content from my Singaporean friends are very dry. Their content is little and often is mostly a rant or complaint to some spectre that doesn't exist. I really hope that I do not do the same. What they seem to lack the most is the lessons that they receive from their daily life upon retrospection, which is something that should be done in almost every day in life. I'm just happy that it happens for me subconsciously. 

As the anniversary of my blog approaches (next month!), I finally call myself an experienced blogger, although not the best, as I am an avid reader of other blogs. I do see the fruits of my labour and I do hope that the readers that have stuck through with me all these years have seen improvements as well. Nobody is perfect, but as I have always said, I try my best to be.

Here's to years of blogging and many more years to come!

Cheers,

Matthew Tan